


Lucid Dreamer (Wake me up)

by Kedreeva



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Darkness, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Nightmares, Suicidal Thoughts, sterek, these tags are not really making much sense together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1052923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every night Stiles is plagued by nightmares and followed by a dark, blue-eyed wolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lucid Dreamer (Wake me up)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elegantlydisastrous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantlydisastrous/gifts).



> Commissioned by the wonderful and amazing ElegantlyDisastrous for the Sterek Campaign's Wolf Pack Charity Project!
> 
> The original prompt was: "A Sterek AU where it's Derek featured in every nightmare that Stiles has. I want it to get ugly, I want them to lose their minds /together,/ but then I want you to make it fluffy."

**Lucid Dreamer (Wake me up)**

 

            His coffee has long gone cold in his hands, the bitter flavor settling to the bottom in the stillness of the late afternoon. He can see across the city, to the far edge, to where the tall buildings taper off into greener suburbs. Somewhere out there is his father, taking off his coat and shucking his shoes on the rubber mat by the door. Stiles knows he will pour himself a couple fingers of whiskey and have a seat on the couch to watch terrible television, and he knows that if he calls, his father will tell him he was just laying down to read a book before bed.

            He won’t call though- hasn’t called in over a year, not since his father sold the old house and the new people pulled up all the carpets and tore out the floorboards still stained in his mother’s blood.

            Now all he has left of her is the nightmares.

            They began a little over two years ago, on the day she died. He doesn’t remember the early ones, but he remembers having them. His father told him it was normal, that they would pass, but they hadn’t. They had only gotten worse. So much worse…

 

* * *

 

_He knows when he opens his eyes, he won’t be in his bedroom anymore. It’s never the same place twice in a row, although Stiles recognizes some of the repeat locations. He recognizes the school classroom where his mother taught, and the basement of his childhood home, and the field littered with bodies. Sometimes they have faces, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they stay where they are, rotting and dead, sometimes they beg for help; sometimes they blame him._

_Sometimes they get up and tear him to pieces until there’s nothing left._

_It has never failed to find him, though, regardless of where he is. It watches him with pale blue eyes from the doorway or the corner or from across the field. There was a time when he thought the wolf was responsible for what happened, that it was the one whispering doubt and blame and chastisements into his ear every night, but he knows better now. It is an observer only, a silent witness to his suffering._

_Every night he is dragged down into the darkness of his nightmares, and every night the wolf trails after him until the very end. It chases hot on his heels when he runs, endlessly, until he collapses and whatever hunts him finally catches him. It stands nearby, watching with him as his loved ones are taken, watching when his father or his mother or his friends appear and layer accusations upon him until he lays curled on the ground, hands over his ears and voice hoarse from begging them to be quiet. It has seen scalpels carve murals into his skin, heard him scream right down to his soul for it all to stop._

_Every night, when he opens his eyes to whatever new horror has found him, the black wolf watches._

 

* * *

 

            His friends had given up on him after a while, after he stopped calling or answering the phone or the door. He can’t see them anymore, can’t face them after everything he has heard them say, night after night. He can’t look at Erica’s face and keep himself from seeing the skin melting from her bones. He can’t face Allison, with her eyes burned out, telling him how worthless he is. It isn’t actually them - and on some level he knows that - but the nightmares are always so vivid that sometimes it is hard to believe.

            Scott, his best friend, had held out the longest. _You’ve got to get help_ , he would say softly to Stiles, their shoulders pressed together. _If you won’t tell me, tell someone else. Anyone, Stiles._

            That is the problem; Stiles wants to tell him, to tell someone, everyone.

            He’s afraid it will only get worse, though he’s not sure how much worse it can get at this point- he's already cut the last thread holding him to sanity.

 

* * *

 

_When they are done, when Stiles cannot take any more and the darkness is moving in, so too does the wolf. When Stiles is well and truly broken, the wolf curls up around him and doesn’t seem to mind the blood on his skin. It presses in close to him, warm and soft, and lets him curl sticky fingers into its fur, licking gently at his chin and his cheeks until he can finally speak._

_Stiles cannot talk to anyone in his waking life, but he talks to the wolf._

_Every night, he closes his eyes and listens for the steady heartbeat, until his begins to beat again, and then he talks. He whispers apologies and explanations. He tells the wolf about his mother and his father, about Scott’s text that says_ I miss you _because Stiles hasn’t spoken to him in weeks, not since Scott took his mother apart at the seams and licked clean the blood from his fingers._

_Every night, he talks until he opens his eyes and soft dawn light is pouring into his bedroom from the south window, and he is alone once again._

_Every night, except for last night._

 

* * *

 

            In his head, he ticks over the list of everything he is leaving behind. He had gotten up a little earlier than usual, spent the morning straightening the apartment, cleaning surfaces, organizing stuff. He’d cleaned out the fridge and thrown away the more embarrassing of his possessions, then taken the trash out on his way to the little coffee shop around the corner. He had ordered his favorite drink and tipped the young woman behind the counter almost double what he paid for the coffee. The shop had become his favorite haunt after the funeral, as he tried to stay awake for days to avoid the nightmares.

            It hadn’t worked; they were always worse when he finally slept.

            But he doesn’t have to go back anymore.

            The thought makes him feel lighter somehow, no longer buried under the weight of fear and pain. Though he left a letter to his father folded on top of his desk, he’d said his goodbyes long before today.

            Now he sits on the raised edge of the roof, ten stories up, and looks out instead of down because the view is prettier. Along the horizon the sun is setting, lighting up the sky red and orange and yellow, flame colored tongues licking at the blue of the sky until it blackens.

            Darkness is closing in, reaching for him, and he can’t face it again.

            He sets down his coffee and clambers to his feet.

 

* * *

 

_The beat of the wolf’s heart is steady and strong beneath his ear, anchoring Stiles to himself when he thinks he might be lost. He strokes along the dark flank, fingers sticky-slick with blood - he’s not sure whose anymore - and watches the fur cling together into spikes. When his tongue has healed enough to speak, he does._

_He buries his nose in the wolf’s thick pelt, and he tells it that he can’t keep this up anymore. He can’t keep doing this, can’t keep listening to the voices or watching everyone he cares about suffer, and just keep going. He just can’t. The wolf lifts its head and fixes those beautiful, blue eyes upon him, and he tells it softly that this is it, the last time they’ll ever meet._

_For the first time ever, the wolf whines, low and distressed. Stiles has never heard it vocalize anything, and he places one hand on its snout to stop the pitiful sound._

_“It’s okay,” he whispers, even though they both know it isn’t._

_Then the wolf does something else it has never done._

_It disentangles itself from Stiles, and it leaves._

_Stiles watches it vanish the moment it is on its feet but all he can think is that it’s just as well._

_Now there really is no reason to keep going._

_He curls in upon himself and waits alone in the darkness until he wakes._

 

* * *

 

            He’s not sure how, but the world looks different when he’s standing. Brighter. He looks down for the first time and lets vertigo seize in his belly as he toes his paper cup of coffee over the edge. It is a long way down, and he wonders how many thoughts he will have time to think before it’s over. Not many. A few seconds worth.

            He takes a breath, and closes his eyes.

            Behind him, the metal door slams open, and Stiles growls low in his throat at the interruption.

            When he turns to look, he is snared by the wild, blue eyes of the stranger standing there. For a heartbeat they both stay deathly still, and Stiles wonders how he knew, how he found him, and what he must look like now. He wonders why his wolf’s eyes are staring back at him from a young man’s very human face and why the man’s hair is the exact shade of the wolf’s fur.

            “Please don’t,” the stranger says softly, frozen in place as though afraid Stiles will fall if he comes any closer.

            Stiles doesn’t know what to say to the plea; he’s not sure he’s not dreaming again. He knows who the other man is, he knows why he’s come, but he can’t go back. Not again. “Why not?”

            “Every night,” the man says, barely a breath, as he moves enough to let the door clang shut behind him. “Every night for the past two years, I have followed a human through dreams. I have seen him beaten, bloodied, and broken. I have watched demons whisper all manner of lies into his ears, hurt him in unimaginable ways, make him bear witness to atrocities no one should ever have to face. But he never let them win.”

            Stiles clenches his jaw, eyes closing. “You’re the wolf.”

            “Yes,” the man tells him. “I wanted so badly to save you, Stiles.”

            “You did,” Stiles assures him, voice cracking. Of course he did, he had saved Stiles a hundred times, and a hundred times more, until Stiles had begun to cling to that thought; no matter what they put him through, the wolf would find him at the end, and save him.

            He supposes that is why he is not surprised to find the wolf here again, trying to save him one last time.

“Please,” the wolf begs. “I lose you every morning; please don’t make me lose you every night as well.”

            “You left,” Stiles accuses gently.

            “To find you, but I’ll stay now,” the wolf says. “If you’ll have me, I’ll stay, just please don’t give up.”

            Stiles takes one slow, deep breath and releases it, watching his wolf carefully. “What’s your name?”

            “Derek,” he says quickly. Stiles can see the hope and relief bloom in those pale, familiar eyes. “It’s Derek Hale.”

            “Well, then, Derek,” Stiles says slowly, offering a faint smile. “Thank you.”

            And then he steps off of the ledge.

 

* * *

 

            That night, Stiles lays in bed, one of Derek’s arms tucked around his waist, the wolf’s sleepy heartbeat heavy in his ears. There’s frost on the windows and they have pulled the blankets up over their heads, burrowing into them like children. Stiles has laced his clean fingers into Derek’s, thinking of all the times he threaded his fingers into a thick pelt of fur to help him hold onto something good. He thinks, as his eyes finally close, that perhaps he is still doing so, still grasping for something to keep him anchored here.

            He sleeps, and for the first time in years there are no nightmares.

 


End file.
